<i>Inside</i> Pierrot lunaire<i>: Performing the Sprechstimme in Schoenberg's Masterpiece</i> (review)

examples. The book identifies these examples within the text using two distinct numbering systems: with music example numbers corresponding to the chapter in which they appear, and with figure numbers that appear to be in no discernible order (twenty-two of the thirty-nine examples listed in the “List of Musical Examples” [p. xiii] feature these figure numbers, which range between 1.15 to 118; some numbers are subdivided; some do not appear at all). The text refers to some specific musical passages by example number and others by figure number, which seem to refer to resemble rehearsal numbers within the examples, though this is not made clear. This makes the process of locating the referenced music examples unnecessarily difficult, provided that they can be found at all. Readers will find themselves frustrated while flipping through multiple chapters searching for numbers, hoping to stumble upon the correct example. It appears as though last-minute decisions to omit examples were made without the necessary changes in the text, leaving the reader on a kind of musical snipe hunt. Furthermore, although the examples (when they can be located) greatly demonstrate issues brought up in the text, they appear to have been something of an afterthought. The type setting for them is sloppy (those on pp. 15, 46, 60, 78, and 142 look particularly slipshod), which detracts from the overall authority of the book. Note stems and slurs obscure articulation markings, stems point in the wrong direction, words in the lyrics do not have proper spacing, etc. Had these been rare oversights, they would have been easy to ignore, but their relative frequency, combined with the challenge one faces trying to find the examples in the first place, make it difficult to focus on the excellent writing. While it is doubtful that Johnson completed this aspect of the work himself, it does raise the question of why this carelessness was not observed and corrected during the editing process. Julian Johnson’s Mahler’s Voices: Expres sion and Irony in the Songs and Symphonies blazes innovative trails for scholars in several areas. For those who study narrative theory, Johnson offers a valuable template for full-length monographs discussing the work of a single composer. Mahler scholars can appreciate the continuous threads that Johnson uses to draw connections between works from throughout Mahler’s entire composing career. Johnson finds the perfect balance between specificity and generality, making this book useful to anyone interested in learning more about Mahler, musical narrative, or both.